Tag: LinkedIn

It keeps happening and it is truly astoundingly annoying – and on their part amateurish. What am I talking about?

I’m talking about Recruitment agents who contact me via LinkedIn. It’s nice to get 2/3 LinkedIn emails (InMails they call ’em) per week asking about my availablity. Alas more than two thirds of them are simply wasting their own time in composing and sending me the e-mail. Why? Simply put if they had even bothered to take a cursory glance at the publically available portion of my Experience section they would quickly realise that I am not suitable and they shouldn’t even bother contacting me.

Yet still they do, and I’m pretty sure very very few of them actually look at my profile in any way shape or form until I reply and register interest back.

It seems a mass market e-mail is used to target individuals who have group sets of key words that match an open position, the e-mail is then personalised by LinkedIn’s Recruiter system from where such ‘mailshots’ can be sent. So it’s just the same old way as always – recruitment agencies randomly bombing people with e-mails/InMails in the hope that the needle in the {filtered} haystack responds.

Like this:

This is part II, for details of the scam currently playing on LinkedIn please read part I first by clicking here

Thanks to my kind readers I was able to send 3 bait emails to various ‘Global Resume’ e-mail addresses (USA, UK and Gulf) used by the Resume/CV & cover letter review services spamming on LinkedIn. I used a dummy name, email account and attached a fairly decent copy of my own CV with some alterations to change identity and employer names.

Within 24 hours they resulted in the responses below [yellow highlighting shows the difference between the replies]:

USA ResponseUK response

Notice that the email response from both the UK and USA email addresses are 90% similar, I didn’t bother posting the Gulf response but it was the same as the UK one except the prices were in US dollars.

The same chap ‘Conrad’ responds to emails at all the addresses used. They all refer to localised versions of their review site ‘shops’ from where they encourage you to purchase their extortionate services. 60 Day Money Back Guarantee eh? So who is providing that guarantee – there is no legitimate corporate or business entity to back up this claim.

The localised ‘shop’ links are as follows (please DO NOT follow any of these links and pay for any services):

I also noticed the emails I got back orginated from .org SMTP domains, they were:

review@resumes-uk.org [also cc’d to review2@resumes-uk.org]

review@resumewritingusa.org

Within the UK email the author, Conrad, makes a reference to Résumé-UK.com (the primary scam website which gets you to pay for services). It is literally a spiderweb of work, but once you know their system it becomes straightforward. All of the domains were registered from Feb 2013 onwards.

Since the replies on March 6th I didn’t do anything, I am tempted to spend some money to see exactly what (if anything) they provide, but my guess is the money goes into a black hole.

Interestingly…

I got a follow up email from the .Gulf. address, i’ve posted it below. It states one of her colleagues did an ‘extensive review’ of my CV? LoL just like CVsite this is pure nonsense, a lie. They want to help me succeed in my career? Another lie, all they want it is my money and to laugh all the way to the bank.

Chasing e-mail

Perhaps it’s an April Fools joke which I didn’t get(!)

PLEASEdon’t fall for this scam, so far LinkedIn have not responded to my complaints either directly or via twitter/facebook, and neither have they made any efforts (that I am aware of) to warn people. Perhaps it is because I do not have a paid account. Stay safe.

It’s 2015 yet still a printable CV remains the king of recruitment. Although in many cases you never have to print it, it still needs to be in a format from where you can. More useful is the need to plagiarise portions of your CV to input into online recruitment portals, to make this easy the content and layout/formatting of your CV becomes critical.

We’ll come onto all that in future posts. Today we’ll start with the all important Profile or Personal Statement part of the CV. In my opinion this should always come first. It should be a clean, concise and punchy statement. It should encapsulate who you are, what you are great at and what your ambitions are in one short paragraph. It is your shop window and most people recruiting only spend a few seconds scanning your whole CV, this is one of few sections they usually read 100%. Do you want a messy shop window, or a classy one? Read on.

Let’s start with a simple statement and work from there, I’m going to base this loosely on my own CV so I’m abusing my blogging time by improving my own CV at the same time…

“I am a IT guy. I like to work with computers and have good qualifications. I am good with other people and can work by myself. People say that I am good at my job and in the future I wish to be a better IT guy. Hopefully with more responsibility and more pay.”

Reading that you might think it’s awful. Well it sure does read pretty bad, however in some ways it covers some of the basics quite well. Here they are:

Explains what you are currently doing and that you like it;

Clearly states some positive personal qualities;

Points at motivation to improve oneself;

States your future aims even though it does it poorly;

Not too long, perhaps a little too short.

What it fails to do:

It does not read well, abrupt sentences and wording;

Repeats the same word too many times (Q. Which word?);

Does a poor job of selling you, lots of ‘I’ statements;

Doesn’t use any of the buzzwords a great CV should have

So let’s try re-writing it sentence by sentence.

“I am an IT guy.” becomes “I am a professional ‘Customer Support/Solution Architect/aka Insert your own job title here’ employed by ‘Fujitsu Services/Your Employer’ in the UK”

“I like to work with computers and have good qualifications” becomes “I have a great passion for and hugely enjoy working within ICT and I have achieved industry standard certification/s in ‘Microsoft/Cisco/Accounting/Project Mgmt/aka insert professional certification here’ [if you have no professional certification, insert an educational element instead e.g. BSc, MSc, MBA, PostGrad etc. etc.]”

“I am good with other people and can work by myself.” The classic line found just about everywhere, our approach will be to give practical examples rather than generic huff & puff “I recently completed a successful upgrade/replacement project working well within a large team and currently/previously I was placed on assignment individually to complete pre-sale negotiations with a potential customer which I closed positively working on my own”

Hmmmm, it seems as if we’re doubling or even tripling the size of our profile paragraph. Our initial profile has 5 sentences in total, we have tackled 3 so let’s join them up before we tackle the final 2.

“I am a professional ‘Customer Support/Solution Architect/aka Insert your own job title here’ employed by ‘Fujitsu Services/Your Employer’ in the UK. I have a great passion for and hugely enjoy working within ICT and I have achieved industry standard certification/s in ‘Microsoft. I recently completed a successful upgrade/replacement project working well within a large team and currently/previously I was placed on assignment individually to complete pre-sale negotiations with a potential customer which I closed positively working on my own”

So a little bit of rewriting, move some words around and delete others, add some BUZZWORDS, a dash of garlic and you get this:

“I am a Microsoft certified professional Solution Architect into my 5th year at Fujitsu Services in the UK. I have a great passion for and hugely enjoy working within ICT. I recently completed a large transition project ON TIME working BRILLIANTLY within a larger team, previously I SUCCESSFULLY closed a pre-sales negotiations with a new customer working on my own.”

Better? No? OK, still a ways to go and plenty of re-writing to do. Do keep in mind that this section can always be deployed on professional networking sites as your lead-in (think LinkedIN) as well as online application forms in the ‘summarise yourself’ type of questions.

Let’s tackle those last 2 before we join the whole piece together.

“People say that I am good at my job and in the future I wish to be a better IT guy.” > People say? Hallelujah, that’s high praise indeed. Let’s make it fact. “Feedback from peers year on year demonstrates my high capability and I always seek to improve my technical skills by reading, writing and supporting colleagues” See…you’re a true shining star AND a team player!

“Hopefully with more responsibility and more pay.” > “My motivation is to improve myself by seeking a more responsible position as a ‘Senior position to what you currently are’ [ideally push yourself up 2 level, that way you’re aiming high but not too high] and I see myself as a capable CIO/CTO in the future”

So let’s add these last 2 together and rewrite.

“Excellent feedback from peers year on year demonstrates my high capability and I always seek to improve my technical skills by reading, writing and supporting colleagues. My motivation is to improve myself by seeking a more responsible position as a Lead Architect and I see myself as a capable CIO/CTO in the future”

Reaching for the stars indeed, but that’s what you should be doing right?

Right, time to stitch it all together. Look for repetition, overlaps and statements that could be made more concise.

“I am a Microsoft certified professional Solution Architect into my 5th year at Fujitsu Services in the UK. I have a great passion for and hugely enjoy working within ICT. I recently completed a large transition project on time working brilliantly within a larger team, previously I successfully closed a pre-sales negotiations with a new customer working on my own. Excellent feedback from peers year on year demonstrates my high capability and I always seek to improve my technical skills by reading, writing and supporting colleagues. My motivation is to improve myself by seeking a more responsible position as a Lead Architect and I see myself as a capable CIO/CTO in the future”

So our initial poor attempt 54 words and the new super duper version is now 113 words. More refinement ahead…remember you are always improving.

work in progress

“I am a Microsoft certified Solution Architect into my 5th year at Fujitsu Services UK, with a boundless passion for ICT. I recently completed a large transition project on time working brilliantly within a larger team, having previously closed a sale with a new-name customer working on my own. Recent feedback from peers demonstrates my excellent aptitude while I continuously improve my technical skills by reading, writing, blogging and supporting colleagues. I am motivated to seek a position with greater responsibility and I see myself as a capable CIO/CTO in the future”

See how the process of reading/re-writing and repeat works. At some point you have to stop and look at it and think “IS this my best effort?” if so then stick to it! We are now down to 92 words. Pretty darn good. Reads well too! Pat yourself on the back and pour yourself a cold one.

Part II will be the Career/Job/Work History section. A biggie, but we like it! A look at buzzwords too.

Part III will cover Educational History, Interests/Hobbies, Professional Certifications, and more generally the Layout and Contact information (taking into account security of your identity).

I just got wind of the ‘Global Resumes Alliance (UK)’ about time someone did something about all those rubbish CV/Resumes out there, and a global organisation too. Wicked! However, too good to be true and another scam. Trying to take advantage of those genuinely trying to improve their chances of finding or bettering their employment status, something that is both mentally and emotionally challenging. I really hate these scams.

LinkedIn’s inMail system is normally spam free in the main (they seriously clamp down on ability to mail shot etc) , so this one snuck in sideways. I’m not sure how it got into my inbox. I’ve posted it below in all its pathetic glory:

CV Appraisal offer

It is a load of nonsense, the profile used to send it ‘Sara Cannon‘ is either fake or compromised. The picture is also most likely generic stock photo stolen of the interweb. There is no corporate entity in the UK with the name Global Resumes Alliance (UK) or anything similar.

Like i’m just so trusting and am going to send my CV to some random email address.

The one bit of useful info is the domain name of the email address, a quick lookup of resumes-uk.org reveals a bit of info:

Both the Admin and Tech WHOIS details are the same. Potentially you are about to send your info out to Singapore. So who is this Christina Taylor? I’ve not found any information on her. However the address in Singapore is real, but it is a Virtual Office (any decent scam artist will obfuscate)

The website itself, resumes-uk.org, is fully functional and appears to be hosted in the United States. It is fairly generic and bears some of the warnings of a scam website, it hosts an online shop (please don’t buy anything!) and does not have a contact address or phone number anywhere at all. It only uses PayPal to process payment. Contains generic information and advice, presumably harvested from other sites. Dubious references. It literally takes a couple of hours to put up a website like this.

DO NOT USE any of the services on offer from RESUMES-UK.ORG, especially if payment is involved. You have been WARNED

What to do now?

Oh, I know I’ll send one of my fake CVs out to the email address and see what reply I get! Will update this post on progress…

I recieved the following within the LinkedIn internal ‘InMail’ messaging system:

Hi Zulfikar,

Greetings for the day.

Wipro Technologies is a global information technology, consulting and outsourcing company with 145,000 employees serving over 900 clients in 61 countries.Wipro is globally recognized for its innovative approach towards delivering business value and its commitment to sustainability

we do have an excellent opportunity comes up with our major client and its exactly matching your skill and experience . Kindly go through the job description below and please replay back to me your interest.

Having worked within LinkedIn as a recruiter myself and having had access to the LinkedIn ‘Recruiter’ feature set I certainly know how to format an InMail in order to garner a good rate of response. LinkedIn provides great training & advice on how best to use the limited InMail allowance you get to its best effect. This chap totally failed on all fronts. I just had to respond, and respond I did:

Dear A, I hope you are well.

Thank you for the approach, however I must state at the outset that a role in Geneva is not currently in my best interest.

I actually was not going to reply but I feel I must. I am used to being approached out of the blue on LinkedIn, however your InMail is unfortunately littered with grammatical mistakes and spelling errors. I hope you can correct these in future InMails.

Additionally there is no information on the salary range on offer OR whether the role is a contract or a permanent position. Knowing that the role is in Geneva I have no clear understanding of the language requirements (is English sufficient or does one need Swiss/German/French?) and what the considerations are for relocation.

Your last line is also not the way you should really sign off, asking for my resume is all well & good but that is a matter of considered timing and manners. In fact my LinkedIn profile should avail you of approximately 95% of the content of my resume. If you peruse my profile you will be a better judge of whether I fit this role or not.

I wish you the best in finding the right person for this role. Good luck.

Regards, Zulfikar.

I know nothing about the guy who sent me the original InMail, I am 99% sure that his first language is not English so I should definitly give him some leeway in that respect, However the whole approach is, in my opinion, pretty poor and here are the 5 reasons why:

I work for Fujitsuand I already know who Wipro are (a rival) so spare me the Copy+Pasted company blurb

Spare me the Copy+Paste Job Description

Try to sell the job role, make it something I might be piqued into finding out more about

Don’t ask for my resume when it is already there!

LOOK at my profile before getting in touch, it is publically available.

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Zulfs blog where you'll find bits of random info on tech, cars, trading and religion. All mashed up MongoDB style! Just to be very CLEAR all opinions are my own personal viewpoints and should not be taken as gospel without verification. Happy Kindling.

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About

Zulfs blog where you'll find bits of random info on tech, cars, trading and religion. All mashed up MongoDB style! Just to be very CLEAR all opinions are my own personal viewpoints and should not be taken as gospel without verification. Happy Kindling.